Age Of Conan DX10 Version Delayed

Age of Conan's collector's edition is completely sold out, all over the world! This is the gist of the press release issued today, which points out that they actually printed more copies of CE, bringing the total to 111,000 units, which were all sold out, preorder numbers were astronomical, the game is set to be a tremendous success, and oh, the DirectX 10 version of the game isn't coming out this week.

Wait, what?

Buried in the last few paragraphs of the press release, Funcom...well I suppose it still counts as revealing despite being buried at the bottom...Funcom reveals that the DX10 version of the game needs more work, and will now be premiered at Games Convention in Leipzig this August. The extra time will be used to add in new features and focus on "building a DirectX 10 version worthy of Microsoft's great vision for the future of PC gaming". We'll be looking forward to that then. Hit the jump for the full press release. Remember to scroll all the way down.

Age of Conan Collector's Edition Completely Sold Out

- Historical pre-order and ship-in numbers for 2008's most anticipated MMO - - Early access offer oversubscribed � First review of game gives a 9 out of 10

Durham, USA - May 19, 2008 - Funcom is proud to announce that the Collector's Edition of Age of Conan is now completely sold out in all markets. The exclusive edition was announced in January, and has since topped retail charts at numerous retailers. In some markets, the Collector's Edition has been sold out for weeks, and as a result additional boxes were made. These are also sold out, and the total print run stands at 111.000 units. Lucky customers may still find some copies on retail shelves, but no re-orders are available.

Additional retail figures for the standard edition of Age of Conan are also highly impressive. In total, Funcom is shipping around 700.000 copies of Age of Conan on day one. This impressive figure for a PC game is powered by equally impressive pre-order numbers. As a result of the tremendous interest and recent order increase, Funcom has not been able to fulfil all orders of Age of Conan in several markets due to current server capacity limitations. Extra orders of servers are now in place to facilitate for handling of more customers.

"Everyone in Funcom is delighted and humbled with the historical pre-order numbers for Age of Conan. If the information we have is correct, they represent the highest pre-order number for any global launch of an original PC game, ever, including the original World of Warcraft launch," said Morten Larssen, Funcom's VP of Sales & Marketing.

More than one million unique visitors visited the Age of Conan websites last week, and as a result of the great interest in the game, Funcom's early access offer was swiftly oversubscribed. The three day early access program was a limited offer reserved for pre-order customers. While Funcom scaled the servers above anticipation, player demand surpassed expectations. As the Early Access servers launched last night, the servers and game held up exceptionally well. As the game launches properly later this week, Funcom expects additional large numbers of customers to enter the game.

All the positive signals are naturally not equal to eventual success, but early indications from the press points out that the game boasts unique qualities. The very first review for the game gives it a 9 out of 10 score from Game Reactor, the Nordic regions largest gaming magazine.

While Funcom is thrilled with the early success of Age of Conan, and proud of the game launching this week, the company regrets to inform gamers that the DirectX 10 version of the game will not ship with the initial launch. As Microsoft's DirectX 10 is undoubtedly the future of PC gaming, Funcom has decided to ship only the DirectX 9 version at launch, giving the team more time to focus on building a DirectX 10 version worthy of Microsoft's great vision for the future of PC gaming. This postponement will let Funcom include even more features in the DirectX 10 version of Age of Conan than originally planned.

The DirectX 10 version will be premiered at the German Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany, August 20 - 24, 2008. A special preview showing off the advanced graphics made possible by DirectX 10 technology will be unveiled this summer at nVidia's NVISION event in San Jose, California, August 25 - 27, 2008.

Age of Conan launches 20th of May in North America / Oceania and 23rd of May in Europe. More information about the game can be found on www.ageofconan.com

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